my weekend — two interviews, a temple, and a songroom

May 31, 2010

As usual, I got out of work at 11pm on Friday.  I went straight to bed because I had to wake up at 5am to catch the bus to Seoul.  But I was nervous; I couldn’t sleep.  I woke up late and missed the 6am bus. After three hours, I arrived in East Soul and, [...]

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Buddha’s Birthday — Donghwasa

May 24, 2010

Donghwasa is probably my favorite temple in Korea.  I love everything about it. So for Buddha’s Birthday, I decided to make a last minute trip.  It was very, very interesting, even if it wasn’t as awe-inspiring as the first time.  They were doing construction on the enormous 33m Buddha, so that was a mess.  And while [...]

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Wonder Girls are back!

May 19, 2010
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As you may or may not know, I LOVE the Wonder Girls. In Korea there’s no shortage of girl groups (or boy groups), but in my opinion, the Wonder Girls are a step ahead of everyone else.  I still think So Hot and Nobody are the best pop songs (and videos) to come out of [...]

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Lotus Lantern Festival Parade

May 18, 2010

After two long days in Seoul walking more than I have ever walked in my entire life, I pulled it together enough to wait it out for the Lotus Lantern Festival Parade.  I’m glad I did, because I loved it. In my former life working in politics, I attended many (MANY) parades.  As a rule, [...]

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Lotus Lantern Festival 2010 in Seoul

May 17, 2010

This weekend I spent some time in Seoul to check out the Lotus Lantern Festival.  Buddha’s birthday is this month and there are a lot of things going on. It was very interesting in comparison to American festivals… by that I mean it was A LOT less annoying.  Of course, I can never figure out [...]

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Philippines — The Movie

May 13, 2010

I am the annoying tourist who sacrifices enjoying the moment so that I catch it on film.  My friends oftentimes hate me, and sometimes I do regret not fully taking in some wonderful moments in my effort to get a good photo or video. Of course, now that I’m NOT on vacation, I am so [...]

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Negros Oriental – Casaroro Falls

May 12, 2010

After Siquijor, I took a brief trip over to Apo Island.  That proved to be one disaster after another and I took the first boat back to Negros. Once I was back on the island of Negros, I camped out in Dumaguete and was able to take a day trip to Casaroro Falls. Like everything [...]

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Siquijor – obligatory vacation sunset photos

May 9, 2010
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I know, I know.  EVERYONE takes crappy sunset photos on vacation.  It’s as if we’re unable to see sunsets in our hometowns and when thrust upon a new landscape, something as common as sleep becomes so incredibly fascinating. I do try to see the natural beauty of the earth; however, I live in the Apartment [...]

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Siquijor – butterfly sanctuary

May 8, 2010
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One of the best parts of Siquijor was the butterfly sanctuary.  I’d never been to anything like this, but I have to admit, being in a beautiful garden with butterflies flying all around is about as close to heaven as I’ve ever come… it was certainly much better than the “Heaven” room the Baptists would [...]

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Pants in Korea and Gmarket hell

May 6, 2010

I had  two weeks to plan for vacation and one of my biggest concerns was finding vacation clothes.  Mainly, I needed a swimsuit and shorts.  And while this isn’t a concern in many places in the world, in Korea, they just don’t carry my size. So, I buckled down and went online to use what [...]

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Jesus stuff — Siquijor

May 5, 2010
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The Philippines have a reputation for taking Jesus seriously… and on Siquijor there was no shortage of Jesus paraphernalia. Most of the things I saw were built in the 19th century when the Spanish had colonized the islands.  I found them all to be very beautiful in their own way. One thing I always find [...]

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Siquijor – Cambugahay Falls

May 3, 2010
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Cambugahay Falls was one of the favorite things on my trip.  I had seen pictures before I arrived and I knew what to expect.  However, like pretty much everything I saw in the Philippines, it exceeded every expectation. Cambugahay was also one of the few places I went where there were other people around.  Several [...]

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Philippines – Siquijor – Sandugan Beach

May 2, 2010
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I just got back from my vacation in The Philippines.  I spent most of my time in the Siquijor province, but also went out to Apo Island, Dumaguete, and Manila. Siquijor was amazing.  I stayed at the Kiwi Dive Resort (highly recommend), which only has a handful of cottages, and even though there were other [...]

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The Wire ruins my life

April 18, 2010

I haven’t been keeping up with the blog because I started re-watching The Wire, and I just finished Season 3… for the fourth time. If you’ve never seen The Wire, the best way to summarize is to just say that it’s a crime drama set in Baltimore that focuses equally on the detectives, drug dealers, drug [...]

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Adam’s Oscars — Best Picture

March 7, 2010

Fantastic Mr. Fox Fantastic Mr. Fox is far and away my favorite movie of the year.  It was perfect in almost every way. The writing was hilarious; the story was great — bunch of wild animals band together to defeat the evil farmers who are upset due to one fox’s (George Clooney) overactive ego.  There’s [...]

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Adam’s Oscars: #8 – #2

March 7, 2010

As you may know, I’m doing my own Oscar balloting this year since my opinion tends to better than the majority of the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (at least in my opinion). Basically, I took the 8 highest grossing movies of 2009 and the 8 most well-reviewed films of [...]

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Kim Yu-Na breaks her own world record to win Olympic gold

February 27, 2010

Enough has been written about Kim Yu-Na’s performance today, so I’ll keep it brief. It was amazing. On Tuesday, she broke the world record for the short program (she held the previous record) and today she broke the world record for the free skate (she held the previous record).  But she didn’t just break records, [...]

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Kim Yu-Na and Korean expectations

February 24, 2010

The New York Times had a great article yesterday on Kim Yu-Na and the enormous expectations that are on her to win the gold medal in Vancouver. Given that Kim is a national hero in South Korea, “her loss or her winning will be perceived as a national loss or a national winning,” said Kyung-ae [...]

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Adam’s Oscars — the bottom 8

February 23, 2010

A few weeks ago I had this great idea to do a movie playoff.  I took the 8 highest grossing films and the 8 highest scoring Metacritic films and paired them up against each other.* It turned out to be a dumb idea, but what it did do was allow me to watch movies in [...]

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My gym experience

February 22, 2010

Let me just start by saying that the best part of my Korean gym is that they have those fat jiggling machines from the mid-20th century.  I love them!  I don’t use them (because they are almost always occupied), but I love that they are there. Now that that’s out of the way, here’s the [...]

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